Out with the old, in with the new year – happy 2019!

Everyone keeps saying how quickly the years fly by, and here we are in 2019 already.

2018 was an eventful 12 months in the current event arena. The spectre of Brexit hanging over us, leading us into the unknown – businesses are cautious, maybe even worried. However, taking a lead from contemporary popular culture I say we can only “keep calm and carry on.” That’s what I certainly plan to do.

For the SiteZone team, 2018 was a year of growth (I’m happy to say) and change. The SiteZone system has now been installed 5000 times, with 10,000 active tags on sites countrywide. SiteZone is a safety feature used by companies in construction, rail, demolition waste and engineering sectors. Our relationship with partners, such as ESS Safeforce continues to strengthen as we marked a milestone with them this year for stocking 500 SiteZone Systems.

We reached out to more possible customers and collaborators by attending industry shows and sharing our successes and thoughts in the trade media through publishing a variety of product and opinion articles. We even moved office.

And of course, I started writing this blog.

We look forward to continued growth as SiteZone’s effectiveness as a safety system appeals to more companies who want to keep their workers safe from collision risk. We have even welcomed a new Business Development Executive on the SiteZone team to help us manage the next phase of our progress.

Our creativity in 2018 helped to launch SiteZone’s Dumper Advance – a true exemplar of SiteZone’s adaptability as a core product. Dumper Advance was developed especially for use on forward tipping dumpers, because it was identified as a safety requirement on sites that use them.

We also collaborated with Transmon Engineering, who developed ‘Slow and Stop’ from the SiteZone model. This adaption was created to work specifically with forklifts, to detect any pedestrian movement in visually obscured environments and to slow the forklifts down automatically to prevent collisions with people.

These two developments have been very satisfying, because they show that partnership, knowledge sharing and listening to end users’ needs have informed the evolution of our technology. It has made our tech targeted, relevant and useful.

We aim to continue in the same vein, from strength to strength. Alongside our friends, colleagues, and collaborators, we can only move upward. I hope that we can focus more on training and raising awareness of collision safety risk and make an impact on changing safety cultures and behaviours. This means making the effort to communicate and reach every level of the organisations with which we work, so that they make informed choices on their safety practice, understand the value of using SiteZone, and more important, how to use it for maximum effectiveness.

Wherever you are, whatever your business or passion, I hope that this year it grows into something more - something better. Reach out to colleagues, partners, peers and grow together. I truly believe that’s where success is best found.

Gary Escott is the co-founder of SiteZone Safety, he has worked in the field of mobile plant safety for 15 years and has worked on the introduction of technology based safety products across other sectors. His goal is reducing the risk of collisions between vehicles and vulnerable persons using innovative products and technology.